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The Center for Michigan, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization, is looking for information from educators like you about improving career outcomes for Michigan students after high school. It’s critical that you share your ideas and opinions in an online survey they’re conducting.

The survey is part of the Center’s Community Conversations to better understand career navigation, college affordability and the opportunities and hurdles students face in getting a good job and pursuing a successful career in Michigan.

Your responses will be confidential and not linked to you in any way. The data will be used to create a report summarizing what Michigan citizens feel about these issues.

Go online now to complete the survey. The survey will be available until April 6.

According to the Michigan Department of Education (MDE), there is no provision in state or federal law that allows parents to opt their children out of assessments, like the M-STEP currently being administered in schools, without it counting against their school and district’s participation rates. MDE offered its official position last week in a memo to ISD Superintendents, Local Agency Superintendents, and Public School Academy Directors.

MEA is partnering with NEA, the Center for Teaching Quality (CTQ) and the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards to sponsor the Teaching Leadership Initiative (TLI) program. If you’re an MEA member and ready to take hold of your career and learn to lead in matters of practice and policy—if you’re an MEA member eager to make a difference in your classroom, but not sure where to begin—TLI is for you.

The two vendors who are currently administering the 2015 Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress (M-STEP) assessments won a three-year contract to continue their work. Data Recognition Corporation, a Minnesota-based company, and North Carolina-based Measurement, Inc. were awarded the contract by the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) and the Department of Technology, Management and Budget (DTMB).

The Center for Michigan, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization, is collecting feedback from Michigan citizens about the Michigan workforce experience through an onlinesurvey. They’re specifically looking for information from educators like you about career navigation.

There is a push on for the next two weeks to ensure that reauthorization of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) is done right this time. It's expected that the Senate will take up the ESEA on April 14.

SB 618was reported out of the Senate Education Committee this afternoon and now moves to the full Senate. SB 618 allows the outsourcing/privatization of teachers and removes the cap on charter schools.

Committee members voted 3-2 on the bill and on a substitute amendment that broke the tie-bar between SB 618 and SB 624which mandates schools of choice.

Michigan is one of the states NEA has chosen to launch a TV ad campaign that urges Congress to pass the American Jobs Act. The ad will also appear in Massachusetts, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Texas and the District of Columbia. To see the 30-second ad, go to http://tinyurl.com/4x2thmt.

The Senate Education Committee heard testimony yesterday—both pro and con—on its so-called education reform package,SB 618-624. MEA’s opposition to the legislation was supported with testimony from Gary Miron, Western Michigan University education professor and national charter school expert, and Barbara Bonsignore, the Public Policy Director of Michigan AAUW.

During an interactive webcast on Monday, Oct. 3, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards will release their report, "Getting it Right: A Comprehensive Guide to Developing and Sustaining Teacher Evaluation and Support Systems."

Michigan may have to reapply for a waiver to get relief from the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) mandate that all students be proficient on state tests by 2014. New waiver request forms are due Nov. 14; approval can be expected as early as January 2012. A second round of waivers is due February 2012.

An EPIC-MRA news releasetoday reports that 68 percent of Michigan voters are clearly opposed to the outsourcing of teachers to private companies, part of a Senate package of education reforms (SB 618-624). And with other reforms getting mixed reactions, it sets the stage for a divisive public conversation on proposals generated by the Republican-controlled Legislature.

Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer (D-East Lansing) criticized the Republican’s fall agenda as a “divisive and ill-conceived social agenda that again will do nothing to help get people back to work.”